note 59695 deleted from function.rand by felipe

Note Submitter: RichardBronosky (1st at last dot com) 

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I like the idea of expertphp at y!, but the implementation was too expensive for my load.  Here is the tightest solution to generating $x random [[:alnum:]] chars that I could think of.  I use this for creating random file names.

<?php
// Assuming $z is "_file_prefix_" or an empty string.
// If $z is unset an E_NOTICE will be added to your logs.
// That's bad for production boxes!
for($x=0;$x<32;$x++){
  $y = rand(0,61);
  $z .= chr( $y + (($y<10) ? 48 : (($y<36) ? 55 : 61)) );
}
echo $z;
?>

To get an array, just change this line:
<?php
  // $z can be unset, null, or an existing array.  E_ERROR if it's a string.
  $z[] = chr( $y + (($y<10) ? 48 : (($y<36) ? 55 : 61)) );
?>